How It Works

Human-centered design is a creative process to glean insights and develop appropriate solutions for tough challenges. For more information, consider getting involved with our trainings and programs, and contact us at DesignStudio@Columbia.edu.

Explore:The goal of the first phase of the design process is to develop empathy for your users, the community for which you are creating a solution. By the end of your exploration, you will have seen the world through your users’ eyes and developed great insights that will help you build a solution that fits their context.

Reframe:In human-centered design, your initial assumptions are generally never completely correct. After gaining deep user insights, it’s time to come back and reframe the information you’ve learned. By better understanding the information you’ve gleaned, you can start to see where your ideas and solutions can fit into the bigger picture.

Generate:Developing a creative idea can be half the battle in entrepreneurship. Once you have information on user’s needs, the idea generation phase of design brings you through brainstorming and ideation exercises to develop a slew of new ideas.

Prototyping:A good idea deserves to be tested, and that’s where prototyping comes in. Prototyping is a way of learning more about the user by actually having them interact with an early version of a solution. Your prototype will allow you to learn more about the user, and will most likely not be perfect the first time.